Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

Gate passedSeeker and aboveModern transcription — not a facsimileJacob Boehme (1575–1624)PUBLIC DOMAIN as published. Boehme d. 1624; the Sparrow translation is 1656. Per-part determination MADE 2026-08-29: the eight front-matter segments carrying the 2009 electronic edition own introductory apparatus were withheld (three excised in full, five redacted in part where a public-domain title block or Boehme text shared the page). The remaining 5,022 segments are public domain and are open at seeker tier.905 of 1000 segments carry a modern register · 343 pp

Jacob Boehme — the works in English, and one in Frencheditor’s preface to the volume

Eleven books by a shoemaker of Görlitz who wrote, by his own account, because he could not help it. Ten of them stand here in the seventeenth-century English of John Sparrow, who translated Boehme within a generation of his death and whose prose is itself now four hundred years old; where that English has drifted out of reach, the facing pane carries a modern register — the same text with archaic inflection and spelling normalised by rule, never paraphrased. Nothing is reworded, and where no register appears beside a passage it is because the rules found nothing to change.

The eleventh book is not in English at all, and it is the reason this note exists.

Des trois principes de l'essence divine, printed at Paris in 1802, is the same work as Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence, which stands here as the second book — the same twenty-seven chapters in the same order, opening `Du premier principe de l'essence divine` against Sparrow's `Of the first Principle of the Divine Essence`. Its translator was Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, who gave the last years of his life to putting Boehme into French, and who has a shelf of his own in this Lycaeum.

That makes a closed circuit inside this archive, and it is worth naming plainly. Saint-Martin translates Boehme. La Iniciación, printed in Montevideo a hundred and forty years later, traces its own descent through Saint-Martin. A reader can therefore follow one thread from a German mystic of 1619, through the French philosopher who carried him into another language, to a Spanish-language monthly of the 1940s that claimed them both — and read every step of it in the original.

The two are shelved as one work rather than two because that is what they are. They are not set as facing panes: an English translation of 1619 and a French translation of 1802 are two independent readings of a lost German original, and pairing them line by line would assert a correspondence neither translator ever claimed.

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154. Although here the tongue 'of man cannot utter, declare, express, nor fathom this great depth, where there is neither number nor end, yet we have power to speak thereof as children talk of their father. But to dive into the whole depth, that troubleth us, and disturbeth our souls ; for God himself knoweth neither beginning nor end in himself. 55. And now being to speak of the Holy Trinity, we must first say, that there is one God, and he is called the Father and Creator of all things, who is Almighty, and All in All, whose are all things, and in whom and from whom all things proceed, and in whom they remain eternally. And then we say, that he is three in Persons, and hath from eternity generated his Son out of himself, who is his Heart, light, and love ; and yet they are not two, but one eternal essence. And further we say, as the holy Scripture telleth us, that there is a Holy Ghost, which proceedeth from the Father and the Son, and that there is but one essence in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which is rightly spoken. 56. For behold, the Father is the original essence of all essences. And if now the second Principle did not break forth and spring up in the Cll. 4] OF THE TRUE ETERNAL NATURE 55 birth of the Son, then the Father would be a dark 1 valley. And thus you see, that the Son (who is l vacuum, or V&HGV of the Heart, the love, the brightness and the mild darkness.

22 rejoicing of the Father) [in whom he is well- 2 Or satiating. pleased] openeth another Principle in his birth, and maketh the angry and wrathful Father (as I may say, as to the originality of the first Principle) reconciled, pleased, loving, and as I may say, merciful ; and he is another [manner of] Person than the Father ; for in his 8 centre there is nothing 3 Or ground. else but mere joy, love, and pleasure. And yet you may see that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the Son, for when the Heart or light of God is generated in the Father, then there springeth up (in the kindling of the light in the fifth form) out of the 4 water-source in the light, 4 Or wellIT i i a very pleasant sweet smelling and sweet tasted water, which spirit ; and this is that spirit which in the original of humility. was the bitter sting or prickle in the harshness [or tartness], and that maketh now in this water-source many thousand 6 centres, without number or end ; 8 centra. and all this in the fountain of the water. 57. Now you may well perceive that the birth of the Son taketh its original in the fire, and attaineth his personality and name in the kindling of the soft, white, and clear light, which is himself; and himself maketh the pleasant smell, taste, and satisfaction [or reconciliation and well-pleasing] in the Father, and is rightly the Father's Heart, and another Person ; for he openeth and produceth 56 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 4

3the second Principle in the Father ; and his own essence is the power or virtue and the light ; and therefore his is rightly called the power or virtue of the Father, 'acknow- 58. But the Holv Ghost is not 1 known in the 1)1 * manifest' as original of the Father before the light [breaketh known or ° forth] ; but when the soft fountain springeth up forth in the in the light, then he goeth forth as a strong t"e8fire before almighty spirit in great joy, from the pleasant kindled.*1 source of water, and [from] the light, and he is the power and virtue of the source of water, and of the light ; and he maketh now the forming [shaping, figuring] and images [or species] ; and he is the centre in all essences ; in which [centre] the light of life, in the light of the Son, or Heart of the Father, taketh its original. And the Holy Ghost is a several Person, because he proceedeth (as a living power and virtue) from the Father and 2 begetting, the Son, and confirmeth the 2 birth of the Trinity. generating, or _ . working. 59. Now we pray thus, Our Father [which art]

The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.

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Commentary

whole issue ·

Cross-estate[P-V]translated_asboehme:2:1:003

This English 'Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence' and boehme:11 are the same work in two languages — and the French is not just any translation. It is Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin's own: 'Des trois principes de l'essence divine', issued by the Périsse brothers of the rue Mercière. Saint-Martin learned German in his fifties expressly to read Boehme, and spent his last years translating him. The estate therefore holds, side by side, the text that formed the Unknown Philosopher and the form in which he gave it to France — the single most direct documentary link between the two founders of this corpus.

→ boehme:11